


the desert knows your name

by nightwideopen



Series: Winterhawk Bingo [9]
Category: Marvel, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bingo, Childhood Trauma, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Past Character Death, Winterhawk Bingo 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:59:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29963988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwideopen/pseuds/nightwideopen
Summary: A broken down speeder and a tale untold.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Winterhawk Bingo [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858948
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo Round Two





	the desert knows your name

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't even mean to write this so i have nothing to say for myself
> 
> unbeta'd
> 
> **Winterhawk Bingo Square filled:** N2 Found Family

“You know,” Bucky says, voice muffled where he's tucked under their broken down speeder, “If we'd had just replaced the kriffing engine the first time this happened—”

Clint cuts him off with a loud groan that rattles his own head and further ignites the impending headache behind his eyes. This was supposed to be an easy job, on and off this dust bucket in a tick. Now it's been two standard days and they've blown the engine on their only speeder in the middle of the Dune Sea with only enough food for another day or two. 

“Oh, shut _up_ about it already.”

Clint hammers the last stake into the sand, begrudgingly admiring the handiwork of his tent. The suns have already started to set and there's no way Bucky’s going to get the speeder up and running before nightfall. They're better off hunkering down until morning and starting all over. If nothing else, their bounty probably won't go far, either back towards Mos Eisley or forward towards Mos Espa. There's nowhere else to go on this dismal planet, and as far as they know the guy doesn't have a ship to escape off world with or the money to rent one. Hence the bounty on his head. 

“I'm just saying—”

“Shut the fuck _up_ ,” Clint growls. There's sand between his teeth already, making every word crunch uncomfortably. There's sand in his boots and in his eyes and he _hates_ it. There's sand _everywhere._

Bucky slides out from under the speeder. “Kriffing hell, what crawled up _your_ ass and died?”

One word: “ _Sand_.”

Clint plops down grumpily into said sand like a petulant child. He knows he's being unreasonable, snapping at Bucky for no reason. He just _hates_ being here. Hates this planet and everything it reminds him of. But it's not like Bucky would know that. Because he hasn't told Bucky a damn thing about himself that Bucky hadn't probably already guessed. And Bucky’s never asked where he's from, who he was before they met. Bucky takes him at face value, as the person he is now rather than who he might've been. Because it's trivial, holds no significance to how Bucky feels about him. He's only told Clint that a few dozen times. 

And Clint doesn't question it, because he feels much the same in return. 

But Bucky’s been so open about his own _before_ , has trusted Clint with more than Clint has any business knowing especially while giving nothing in return. And Clint is selfish, never changing because this seems to work for them. He's afraid that any hitch in his step, any slight change of pace is going to shake loose the fragile thing that ties Bucky to Clint. Clint, who's lost it all and then some and refuses to lose Bucky too. 

Bucky sets his tools away, wipes his hand on his tac pants. They're black, so the oil from the engine doesn't leave a stain. Clint assumes this means the speeder is fixed, but the temperature is dropping rapidly as the sky turns from orange to purple and Tatoo 1 starts to dip below the horizon. He throws down another sparse piece of wood onto the tiny fire Clint managed and sits next to Clint on the sand, resting his elbows on his knees. 

“You can tell me, you know. I'll never press and I'll never pry, but I'll _always_ listen if you wanna tell me.”

And that's the fuckin’ rub of it, isn't it? That Clint doesn't deserve the kindness or the trust. It's hardly earned. 

Clint sighs deeply, running his hands through his hair and clenching his jaw at the sand that falls out of it and into his face. 

“Fuck,” he mutters. “ _Fuck_.”

“C’mere.”

For all that Clint is a prickly bastard and Bucky is the same in return, their relationship has been defined by the instinctual tactility that neither of them can resist doling out. It's easier for them to give and give than to receive the help they so desperately want to infringe upon each other. But in times like these, when one of them is cracked open with no way to put themself back together, the other is there with steady hands and a steadier heart, ready to catch the fallout. 

So Clint goes easily, as easily as he can without seeming as though he's actively seeking out the comfort, and lets Bucky tuck him into his side underneath his cybernetic arm. It's hard and unforgiving, a direct contrast to the soft give of his stomach and hips that lie beneath his leather jacket—where Clint deliberately presses himself into—but it's exactly what he needs.

And it's infinitely easier to tell his tale to the impending darkness, rather than say it to Bucky's face. The desert won't judge him, Tatooine’s setting suns won't judge him, her three rising moon’s won't either. They never did. 

“I grew up here,” he says anticlimactically.

“Oh?”

He ignores the feigned surprise in Bucky's inflection. Surely no one has such a visceral reaction to a planet unless they've got history with it, a bone to pick. 

“Yeah. My parents were miners. My brother, too, when he got old enough to help. I was—was five or six when they finally decided to move us from Mos Espa to Mos Eisley for whatever fuckin’ reason.” His child's mind never had any hope of retaining any conversation that might've transpired. He blows out a puff of air. “We, uh, we took these busted up old speeders. Dad and Barney on one, me and my ma on the other. About halfway,” _This_ he remembers clear as day, “Bandits stole out from behind a couple of dunes. Real big mudscuffers, probably Red Key or something. We didn't see them soon enough, and they were there to catch the wreckage when our speeders crashed into their tripwire. And I— I didn't know what to do, you know? I was a fuckin’ kid and-and—”

Clint takes in a great big breath and does his level best to ignore the way Bucky's hand tightens on his bicep. 

“It's okay,” Bucky whispers into his hair. 

“I just sat there. Don't know how I didn't break my legs or something, the way I tumbled. Parts of the speeder hit me some, got me real good on the back of the head. And I couldn't do anything but _watch—_ ”

He swore he'd never cry over this again. He fuckin’ _swore_. And still, even _still_ , a sob pushes itself up and out of his throat. It's all he can do to shove his face into the crook of his elbow as he shakes with the effort to keep it inside. 

“Stop. Stop, it's okay.”

_Stop? Stop what? Crying? Talking?_

He wishes he fucking _could_.

“No. No I— They fucking _killed_ them. Right in front of me and he— He tried. He tried to stop them. But he was too late. All-all he could do was just, grab me and go. And I was screaming and I. I remember it so clearly. Every _second_ of it.”

“I'm sorry, Clint. I'm so sorry.”

Clint swallows hard enough that he manages to tamp down his crying.

Because what Clint remembers even more viscerally than the sand in his eyes and the sounds of his mother’s screams, his brother’s cries, and the blood that dripped down the bridge of his nose and onto this favorite shirt, is the silhouette of the man that pulled him from the wreckage. He'd barely seen out of the corner of his eye as blaster fire had entered the fray, just moments too late to save his mother from her fate. The thugs had dropped unceremoniously into the sand, as if they'd been no harm at all. But Clint supposes that to a man like that, they're no more than a mild inconvenience to his day. And he'd hardly seemed a man at all, a whirlwind of armor and impossible shapes, mercilessly taking down the very things that had taken Clint’s family from him just moments before. 

The sheriff had been a tall, hulking shadow over Clint’s tiny shaking form, his long green coat flapping in the wind. The only thing that made him seem slightly human was when he kneeled down, took the helmet off of his head, handed it to Clint and said, _Hold that for me, partner, would you?_ with the kindest eyes and softest smile that Clint had ever seen up to that point. He'd lifted Clint up out of the sand, mindful of his injuries, and took him away. Away from the carnage of what was left of the only family he'd ever known.

But that wasn't the sheriff’s fault. Clint never blamed him.

“He saved me,” he manages to grind out. “He raised me as his own and I never thanked him. Just up and left in the middle of the night the moment I got my hands on enough credits to hitch a ride anywhere but here. Like a coward.”

Clint gives up the ghost on his reluctance and turns to bury his face properly into Bucky's neck, breathing in the smell of heat and engine oil. 

“It's okay.”

At this point Clint _wishes_ he would just ask. He wishes Bucky would _take_. Just take and take instead of give because Clint doesn't know how to offer up his insides freely. He'd rather Bucky just pried him open and looked for himself. 

Clint asks himself _who?_ in his head, pretends he's hearing Bucky’s voice. 

“Cobb Vanth. Unofficial sheriff of a little settlement called Freetown just a little ways that way.” He points straight ahead into the desert before them. “More or less my father in all the ways that matter. Always wore this _stupid_ red scarf. I owe him my life in more ways than one and I never fuckin’ thanked him.”

Guilt squeezes at his heart and lungs, winding around him like a desert snake intent on crushing the life out of him. 

“Is he…?”

Bucky trails off with the unspoken question. The first real thing he’s asked since this whole sorry story started. 

“Alive as far as I know. Been ten years though, who knows what might've happened in these parts in that time.”

He's shaking with the effort of keeping himself together, all of his bones and muscles clenched hard in order to keep his insides in. But he finds that he's not doing it alone, that Bucky is holding him just as tight so that he doesn't shake apart entirely. 

“We can go in the morning. See what's what. That okay?”

“But the bounty—”

“Ain't going anywhere we can't find him. That's why they hired _us_ , right. Who cares if it takes a little longer than usual? We're not as young as we used to be.”

It's true enough. Clint can't bring himself to care one way or the other. He's just terrified of the alternative. He nods numbly. 

“Okay.”

When he finally turns to look at Bucky, he's met with eyes rimmed red, a sad smile, and that _look_. That look that splits Clint in two every time, makes him feel out of his mind.

“Sorry I was an asshole,” he says softly, eyes drifting down to Bucky’s mouth without his permission. “I just really fuckin’ hate it here.”

“With good reason,” Bucky is saying. “Now we know to avoid sand planets the same way we avoid the cold ones.”

It makes perfect sense and yet it throws Clint for a loop. He doesn't know what to say, what to _do_ to express his gratitude and mindlessly surges forward to crash their mouths together in the only way he's learned suffices. 

With them, it's never about the words. They're clogged vac tubes of sullen silences and cold shoulders at the best of times, emotionally constipated yet stupid for each other. _Beyond_ words. 

So Clint takes his words and puts them into his hands, into his sure hold on Bucky's face that brings him ever closer. He puts his weight behind the kiss, sighing heavily into it and pushing until Bucky pushes back, all but catches him, gentle but unyielding in his reciprocation. And Clint always liked that about Bucky's kisses, ever since the first time they crashed together with all the tenderness of a sandstorm, adrenaline on high and at each other's throats in a different way than they usually would be. It's always been that Bucky's mouth was demanding, all tongue and teeth and sharp bites like he had something to prove; but he was also helpless to innate softness of himself, how he caught himself before pressing too hard, how carefully he cradled Clint's head in his hands guiding him where he wanted him.

And Clint would always acquiesce, because when it comes to Bucky he’s defiant enough already, always contrary. The least he can do is let his trust in Bucky speak for itself where words fail him.

Bucky pulls back after a spell, resting his forehead against Clint's and breathing harshly through his nose. Clint feels every puff of air sharply against the bridge of his own; proof that Bucky is alive, affected, real and with him. He crosses his eyes until they hurt, trying to look at Bucky as long as possible. But eventually he gives in, his own eyes slipping shut.

“I wish I could say something to make it hurt less.”

Clint just shakes his head, interlocking his fingers over the back of Bucky's neck. 

“You can't. But that's okay. This is enough, I promise.”

It's not a lie either, not by a long shot. The distraction was welcome, successful in taking Clint's mind away from the gaping hole in his heart, the ache behind his eyes. 

Bucky presses a soft kiss to his forehead, the side of his nose, the crown of his head, his lips again. He lingers there for just a moment, close but not close enough. Only so close that Clint can feel his lips move when he speaks next in a whisper that puts a quiet breeze to shame.

“I love you.”

And Clint feels every inch of him involuntarily seize up as his eyes shoot open. Bucky's own are still closed, his expression guarded by a careful furrow of his eyebrows, the thin press of his lips. 

“Look at me.”

Sandcrawler-slow Bucky opens his eyes, gaze drifting ever so leisurely over the expanse of Clint's body, his face, until their eyes meet.

“Now say it like you mean it.”

Clint quirks an eyebrow at him, hoping the mere suggestion of a challenge will make it easier. Because he knows Bucky as he knows himself, knows all too well the temptation of wanting to be the most capable motherfucker on this side of the galaxy.

“I _love_ you,” Bucky grits out with dogged conviction, “You stubborn asshole.”

Hearing it the first time pales in comparison to hearing it the second time. Clint has an inkling that the third will be even better. Each time even better after that. 

He pulls Bucky impossibly closer by the back of his neck, nearly toppling them over into the sand, and forcefully presses their foreheads together once more. 

Bucky once told him a tale about Mandalorians, about ways they showed their affection without showing their faces. He remembers, vaguely in the moment that _this_ was important. Sacred. Bucky may not be Mandalorian anymore but Clint can only imagine that such deep waters can only be dammed up so much before something threatens to spill. Like the sand that still gums him up sometimes. 

“I love you, too,” he says back just as sharply. And it's so _easy_ to say it. Like it's always been true. Like it's a fact of his existence. His name is Clint Barton, his family was killed, he’s a bounty hunter, he loves Bucky Barnes. That truth is seared into the very fabric of everything he is. Part of his story. “For what it's worth.”

Bucky tightens his grip on Clint, shakes him slightly like he's trying to get something through his head. And perhaps he is, because he says,

“It's worth _everything_.”

* * *

(They do drive towards Mos Pelgo the next day, finding a bustling town light years from the one Clint left behind. In the middle of the town square, Clint catches a shock of red fabric in his periphery, unchanging and ever present for as long as he'd been here. Cobb Vanth looks as though he's seen a ghost when they see each other, but the hug they exchange is solid and oh so very real. The smile on his gracefully aging face is worth it. The smile on Bucky's, too. Bucky keeps hold of his hand through it all and something in Clint slides home in a way that hasn't in years. It screams _family_. He nearly screams back. He pulls it close instead. This time he won't let go.)


End file.
